


elemental

by amaelamin



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7609123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaelamin/pseuds/amaelamin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Archaelogists Sunggyu and Woohyun set off on a journey to find a city thought to be lost for the last two hundred years, and they come across a journal written by a soldier who was there when the city was last abandoned.</p><p>Basically: trolls, magic, trains that run on air, tree spirits, ruined cities, sentient plants, grandpa!Gyu, Woohyun being in love with the earth, soldier!Myungsoo and a Sungyeol that may not be what he seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	elemental

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on AFF on 21 may 2013.

_2013_

“I miss the internet,” Sunggyu huffed, turning back to frown at a stone that had nearly tripped him. He adjusted his pack as he trudged uphill after a Woohyun who was in raptures at the beauty of the air, the grass, the hills, the sky, and the thousand and one insects that had tried to get intimate with Sunggyu in the past four days.

“How can you possibly say that? Look around you! This is better than anything on Tumblr. It’s paradise, man.”

“I like Tumblr. The pretty insects on Tumblr don’t bite you. The wonderfully filtered-and-edited-blue sky doesn’t rain on you. The rolling green hills don’t – Woohyun?”

Woohyun had come to a stockstill, hands hanging limply by his side as he stared down the lip of the cliff into the gigantic valley below them. Sunggyu gave one last effort as he clambered up beside Woohyun, grabbing onto a tangle of roots to boost himself the last metre or so. He emerged from the tree cover and had the wind knocked out of him through his eyes.

“Sunggyu,” Woohyun breathed, the utter magnificence of the sight before them filling him to the tips of his fingers and the brim of his heart. “We _found it_.”

*

They spent the better part of the rest of the day climbing down carefully into the valley, Sunggyu praying he didn’t put a foot wrong to end up rolling all the way down into the ruins they’d been hunting for altogether more than two years. He was pretty sure his idea of a job when he’d started six years ago hadn’t included possible death by smashing into two hundred year-old blocks of stone, but then Archaeology 101 had happened in university and he hardly blinked at release of liability forms anymore. So, he stepped carefully. Woohyun, however, was skipping from stone to stone like a mountain goat.

“If you fall and break your neck guess who’s going to have to drag you all the way back to town? If I can even remember where the last town was.” Sunggyu called out, and then added as if it were an afterthought – “I’ll probably just feed you to the trolls.”

“I don’t think they come down here, Gyu.” Woohyun looked back over his shoulder at a Sunggyu he knew was trying to come off as more blasé than he actually was.

“You’re missing the part about falling and breaking your neck,” Sunggyu pointed out, and Woohyun waved a hand dismissively.

“And clearly, you never know with trolls,” Sunggyu continued, wiping off a bead of sweat from his upper lip, trying his best to sound unconcerned.

Woohyun knew Sunggyu was thinking about the troll calls they’d heard two nights ago when they were still in the highlands. He’d jolted awake to find Sunggyu sitting up in his bedroll, hardly discernible in the faint moonlight but radiating anxiety. They’d stared at each other as they counted the echoes bouncing around their jagged cave, straining to listen until they could hear no more. He could feel Sunggyu’s wakefulness the whole night, and he’d tightened his fist around the wooden charm his mother had given him that he carried slung on a string necklace, tapping it with his finger. He knew – hoped – the wood remembered the tree it had come from and the wood spirit guarding it, and that the luck still held. It had held.

It was dusk by the time they arrived at the perimeter of the ruins of the once-city lying snug in the shadow of the Blue Mountains, drenched with sweat and legs weak. Woohyun let out a whoop of delirious ecstasy, the sound bouncing off against the stone and ricocheting off in a hundred different directions. Sunggyu felt more full-body relief than anything else. Their journey was over.

“Let’s find a place out of the wind and set up camp. I’m too tired to do anything else.”

“God, what I would give to have a bath. A proper bath, with warm water and soap. And a sponge. And _shampoo_ -“ Sunggyu trailed off, overcome with emotion.

“Stop it, you’re going to make me cry next.”

They avoided venturing too far inside under the growing dark, the huge stone boulders around what used to be the grand city gates providing good shelter against the windchill. Trees had wrapped themselves around the stone in the two hundred years since the city had been abandoned, roots digging deep and wrenching rock asunder. Sunggyu made a fire (all the while giving thanks to the inventors of lighter fluid and firestarters) and Woohyun got out their rations, their tiny light casting shadows against the tall dark of the wood surrounding them.

“When we get back I am never eating beans again for the rest of my life,” Sunggyu said around his last mouthful. “When I pass cans of beans in supermarket aisles I will look upon them with disdain.”

“How on earth can you still be complaining?”

“Fried chicken,” Sunggyu mumbled, cleaning out his mess tin. “Strawberry shortcake. Grilled meat.” Woohyun threw a rag at his head.

“We can contact base tomorrow morning,” Woohyun said as they bedded down for the night. “Get ready to bring all the others down. We’ll talk about our preliminary exploration then too.”

The trees and the stones silently watched them sleep.

*

“My manuscript says there is a ‘path of sapphires’ to the west of the main gates.” Woohyun squinted into the rising sun reflected off white stone. “I have it on very good faith and tons of research etcetera etcetera that that should mean a river. We can go in that direction, fill our water canisters and see what we find along the way. Once we have water to last us we can branch out.”

“Sure,” Sunggyu shrugged. He liked this arrangement; Woohyun led, and he helped. They were a good team, if only because Woohyun was infinitely easy-going and didn’t mind Sunggyu’s complaining. He liked archaeology, he really did – he just also really liked not eating out a can or having to sleep on the ground, which he found himself doing increasingly often these days to his own consternation. He yawned as he took off after Woohyun, resting a hand on the strap of his camera. They would need pictures to accompany their research, and to prove the viability of excavation.

“This is insane, finally being here after just talking about it for so long,” Woohyun said, walking beneath the canopy of trees, dirt path and half-broken buildings weaving in and out of wood and leaf. “I would kill to know what happened here.”

“Who knows?” Sunggyu said softly, clicking away. “We didn’t even know if this place was _real_. You know the whole department thought you were going on a fool’s errand, which is probably why I got sent with you since I have the worst luck in the world.”

“Is it so bad, being here?” Woohyun turned around to face Sunggyu and smiled. Sunggyu lowered his camera and took him in, framed by quiet stone and gently swaying branches in the morning sun. Sunggyu raised the camera to his eye once more and snapped a picture. “Here. Now you have evidence that you found your lost city. We could name it Woohyunland.”

“It already has a name, you know that,” Woohyun laughed, ducking into a doorway arched with symbols etched into the rock. “El Dorado!” His voice echoed back hollowly, becoming wistful around the edges. “The lost city of gold.”

*

_1813_

“What the fuck would a path of sapphires be?” Myungsoo looked up at the sound of his sergeant’s derision. “’e’s taking us on a wild goose chase. ‘is lordship thinks it means actual gemstones, all laid out like they was waitin’ for us to pluck ‘em. I’m goin’ to enjoy the look on ‘is face when ‘e sees it’s just a damn river, or shiny rocks those fuckin’ savages what drew ‘is secret map went gaga over.”

Myungsoo looked away, sighing. He was bored, and he didn’t like trains, and his uniform itched. His mother had been charmed by the sight of the Royal Guards in their leather and guns; wanted him to be attached to the royal court because it meant a cushy job, _she_ thought. _Cushy job my arse_ , Myungsoo thought. _More like pain_ in _the arse_ \- Myungsoo shifted his weight from one leg to the other, counting mentally how long they’d been stuck on this train. It never stopped for refueling or to let anyone on or off – they said it ran on air, the other men did – and they’d been going for more than a week. There was never any jerking, or rumbling; Myungsoo didn’t trust it. It was too quiet, and too smooth.

“They burn up crazy loads of coal to move this thing,” someone next to him said, breaking into his thoughts. “I don’t like it either.”

Myungsoo looked round, and was met with the friendly face of a boy barely his own age. “Spooky, ain’t it?”

“Yeah. Spooky,” Myungsoo answered, trying to figure out who this boy was. “Sorry, mate, but I don’t know your name.”

“You can call me Yeol,” the boy said, extending a long and skinny hand. “At-chyor service!”

“You can hardly be at my service, can you, you’re the same rank as me.”

Yeol shrugged good-naturedly. “Well, way I figure it, we’re all soldiers, see? And soldiers should service each other first an’ foremost.”

“…Service? Don’t you mean serve?”

Yeol winked exaggeratedly. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.” Myungsoo rolled his eyes, inwardly laughing at the boy’s bad innuendo. “Myungsoo.” He shook Yeol’s hand, passing his rifle to his other hand in order to do so. “Let’s hope we get to wherever we’re going soon. I’m about to go stir-crazy stuck in ‘ere.”

Myungsoo caught a scent of soil and living things on the air and inhaled deeply, the breath he was sucking into his lungs suddenly seeming fresher than it had been in days. He breathed it greedily, longing to see the sky again.

“What’s this? The air’s changed,” he said to Yeol. Yeol smiled, and for a moment Myungsoo caught a glimpse of cool, green shadows and the rushing of sweet water. He blinked rapidly, the metal tunnel of the train once more greeting his eyes, the rumblings of restless soldiers accentuating the non-noise of the train.

Yeol was still smiling.

*

They didn’t know they were being watched as they walked through the city, ignorant of the crescendo of anxiety arising every time one of them took a picture of the broken stone wreathed in wood and leaf. At first they were thought to be more soldiers, come after the first wave, but their clothes were different, and they spoke in shorter, sharper sounds. They were the first humans to have set foot here in two hundred years, it was slowly realized, though two hundred years was not a long time to the watchers at all so the mistake was understandable.

Sunggyu had started to frown, and it was obvious to the watchers what he’d noticed; the worry peaked, and they wondered if Sunggyu and Woohyun should be pushed out. Woohyun didn’t notice Sunggyu was uneasy, too busy ecstatically flitting from building to building like a hummingbird drunk on nectar.

They were followed as they found the river, after an hour, and they filled their big water cans before jumping into it joyously. They disturbed nothing, despite being so close to where they should not be, and the anxiety spilled over itself.

The two unexpectedly fell to arguing when they emerged, their strange fickle human voices too loud where the watchers have been used to the rustle of leaf and the bubble of water.

“This city is El Dorado, right? The legendary city everybody knows is supposedly full of gold just lying about all over the place? So where is it?”

“Looted a long time ago, probably-”

“Okay, let’s try a different question. Where’s the _people_ , Woohyun? Don’t act dumb, because I know you haven’t missed it. There’s nothing here but the stone of the buildings and the vegetation that’s grown up around it. There’s no pottery, no remains of wood furniture, nothing that’s made of metal, or reeds, no fabric from clothes. And you know what else?”

“What, Sunggyu.”

“Bones. There aren’t any bones.”

The fear ran deep then, because the watchers knew they may not survive a second time. Before they needed to act, Woohyun took Sunggyu’s arm and guided him back the way they came.

*

“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

Woohyun looked up, and sighed, unsurprised. They’d made their way back to camp in silence, Sunggyu relaxing more the closer they got to the gates. They’d packed cursorily and moved to a shadier spot to escape the midday sun, Woohyun settling down next to Sunggyu in the cool shadow of a rock, waiting for him to ask his inevitable questions. It hadn’t taken long.

“When I was doing my research on El Dorado, all that time ago, I found a passage in the annotations of an old annex of the Fiefdom’s histories that hinted the gold in the city wasn’t actual gold, but something else of extremely high value. It spoke of men that died to get it, but this was always taken to mean that men killed for riches, like they always have done. We usually use Stevensen to translate the old histories, as you know, but this translation was done by Carjong Han, using what he says was a ancient dialect he’d discovered – if you translate it using the dialect it doesn’t mean normal gold at all. This city, I _think_ , was built to protect something else.”

“Like what?” Sunggyu asked, alarmed.

“I don’t know. I was hoping we’d find out.”

“And when the hell were you planning on telling me this? You were pretending there was gold all along!”

Woohyun reached out both hands, trying to pacify Sunggyu. “I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t want to say anything in case I was wrong. The entire department already thinks I’m crazy, and I didn’t want-” He broke off, sending Sunggyu a pleading look.

“Well, you found your city,” Sunggyu pointed out reluctantly. “That’s more than half your crazy discredited already.” Woohyun smiled down at his hands.

“That is pretty awesome, isn’t it? We’re going down in history.”

“Yep, but it’ll be less awesome _if we end up getting killed by whatever erased every single sign of human life from this city_. I’d rather leave the becoming history part for later, not sooner.”

Woohyun mock-sighed. “Why do you always have to ruin everything? Anyway, we don’t know that there was an attack, or that people had to flee suddenly. We don’t really know anything, actually, there’s so little material-”

“Yay for us,” Sunggyu grumbled.

“Stop sulking, sourpuss,” Woohyun teased, we can go back later in the evening for another swim. Anyway, isn’t this why we’re archaeologists? We don’t have all the answers, so we have to just go out and find them.”

The corners of Sunggyu’s mouth twitched involuntarily. “That easy, huh? I’ll try the transmitter again, I guess. Don’t know why the damn thing’s chosen now of all times to go on the blink when we actually need it. Why don’t you have a look at the photos I took?”

*

_28 th day of the 4th month, 5th year of His Majesty Hofjan II’s reign_

_Same thing today. Traveling without any stop at all. Food is still just bread and spicy meat stew though this morning Yeol managed to find blackberries from somewhere. Heaven! He should be careful though if he’s raiding the train’s larder cause I heard Cook is a nasty piece of work._

_When I get back to the city I think I’ll quit. I’m not_

 

“What‘re you doin’?

Myungsoo looked up to see Yeol hanging off the bunk above him, upside-down face munching something.

“Writin’. In my journal. I dunno why I do it, really, there’s nothin’ much ‘appenin’ ‘ere.”

“You can write?” Yeol’s head disappeared to be replaced with his legs, and then the rest of him appeared as he swung himself down onto Myungsoo’s bed far more gracefully than Myungsoo would have managed it.

Myungsoo felt his cheeks heat, suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah, my mam thought it’d be ‘elpful. So’s I could join the Guards.”

Yeol laughed, the sound lingering in Myungsoo’s head, but it wasn’t with the derision he’d had thrown at him when the others at home found out he was learning the alphabet. _“A tanner’s son,”_ Myungsoo thought with a familiar sinking feeling in his stomach. _“Gettin’ ideas above ‘is station?”_ He hadn’t looked at the books his mother had begged and borrowed for him for a week.

“I can’t write,” Yeol said happily. “Not for me, all that.” Myungsoo watched his face sober momentarily, before he asked quickly, “Do most Guards read and write?”

Myungsoo snorted. “No. Waste of time, me learnin’.” Yeol relaxed and smiled again, and Myungsoo shook his head at him. “You must be new, if you ‘aven’t realized the only thing Guards can read are pub signs.”

“I only joined last month,” Yeol told him, eyes following the words on the journal’s page.

“Yeah? ‘Ow come I ‘aven’t seen you around court? Would ‘ave remembered a bean pole like you.”

“Oh, I – I didn’t start duties till – I was still trainin’, they didn’t-” Yeol said slowly, the sentence stopping and starting until Myungsoo realized what was going on. _Another one of the noble families’ younger sons, pushed into the Guards to learn some honor or to just be conveniently gotten rid of,_ Myungsoo thought. _Never had to go through the hard training everyone else did, put straight into a cushy duty, and usually found themselves on the wrong side of a slum brawl or in the gutter outside a public house._ Myungsoo tried to dig down for something contemptuous to say, but the way Yeol was now looking down at his hands, a slight furrow formed between his eyebrows, made him hold his tongue. _Poor bastard. Perhaps he is just that, some rich man’s bastard._

“Seems like you picked the short end of the stick with this job, then,” Myungsoo said, closing his journal and shoving it into his pack. “Not what your Right ‘Onourable father had in mind when he packed you off to the Guards, is it?”

Yeol shrugged and didn’t reply. Myungsoo didn’t probe.

“So…” Yeol began, a few beats later, “Noone told me exactly what we’re doin’, ‘ere. I know we’re ‘eaded for El Dorado, but why?”

“You’ve been on this train for two weeks and you dunno what we’re doin’?” Myungsoo asked disbelievingly. “It’s all anyone ever yammers about and it’s borin’ me to death. There’s gemstones there, or somewhat, and so ‘is lordship wants us to dig it out.”

“But ‘e’s already so rich!”

Myungsoo raised an eyebow, thinking that Yeol truly must be simple to say something like that. _Maybe that’s why his father sent him away._ “You ever known a rich man to pass up the chance to get even richer?”

“No, I ‘aven’t,” Yeol answered quietly, standing up and beginning to pace. “I think I’m gonna go outside.”

“Outside?” Myungsoo looked up, incredulous. “We’re not allowed outside, you know that.”

“I don’t care.”

Yeol took Myungsoo’s hand and dragged him through the sleeping cabin, through legs hanging off top bunks and snores resonating through the unnaturally seamless metal of the roof, Myungsoo stumbling a bit and marveling at the coolness of Yeol’s hand – not cold and clammy, but cool like the feel of a stone beside a waterfall or the touch of a leaf in the deepest of forests – Myungsoo frowned at the unbidden images, confused because he’d never been out of the city. The city; sprawling and filthy, full of humans living and dying and trying their best to crawl out of the mud, where he was born and thought he was going to die, where the only green thing you could find had been cut off a bush or pulled out of the ground and transported from miles away.

While distracted, Yeol had pulled him through a door he’d always thought had been locked and they emerged abruptly on a short balcony at the end of a train car, the wind almost blowing Myungsoo off his feet in his surprise. He made the mistake of looking down.

“’oly fuck!”

Yeol laughed at him, the sound snatched from his lips as soon as it emerged into the night air by the speed of the train. Myungsoo clutched at him in his panic, Yeol’s height somehow more secure than the low railing of the balcony. “Oh, seven ‘ells, I didn’t know we were that far above ground.”

“Don’t faint,” Yeol turned to him, grin all white teeth in the moonlight. He breathed in deeply, lifting his arms to feel the wind buffet them, fingers reaching as if for the moon. Their hair moved wildly, whipping into Myungsoo’s eyes and making him squint, the train so unbelievably steady while rushing by on at least five metres of air that he tried not to think about it.

“Ain’t this so much better than bein’ cooped up in that nasty metal shell?” Yeol bent to say this in Myungsoo’s ear, Myungsoo’s hands tightening in Yeol’s jacket.

He gazed out at the landscape they were rushing by, dark bunches sitting upon the undulating earth – forests unseeable in the nighttime. They sped by a sudden lake, the bright moon reflected off its fractured surface a million times. Yeol started at the sight, pleasure suffusing his face.

“We should go in ‘fore someone misses us,” Myungsoo mumbled, the cold driving him deeper against Yeol’s side.

 _Nobody’s gonna miss us,_ Yeol replied, and it took two days for Myungsoo to realize that he hadn’t heard Yeol through his ears.

It was about four hours later, when everyone was asleep, that the train crashed.

*

“No luck with the transmitter?”

Sunggyu shook his head. “I mean, you know I’m no genius with machines to start with but this is completely beyond me. Everything looks perfectly fine and it can be turned on but it just refuses to send out or receive anything.”

“Are the batteries in?” Woohyun enquired innocently, and got a deathly glare for his trouble.

They walked into the city again after lunch, Sunggyu now beginning to recognize certain buildings and admire the way they looked in the softer afternoon light.

“It is true, then,” he mused, following Woohyun carefully into a long, low building, light pouring in from holes in the broken roof. “The trolls, I mean. Hardly anybody even believes in them anymore in the city, but they’re out here.”

“What’s true, Gyu?” Woohyun asked, their voices automatically hushed as they fell into step with each other, the slightest noise echoing off the old walls.

“I – I’m not sure. I mean, I found myself apologizing just now, when I stepped on a tree root. I didn’t even think about it, I just told the tree spirit I was sorry and that I meant no harm. And then after I did it I felt stupid, because even you don’t believe in wood spirits anymore.”

Woohyun’s hand instinctively reached for the charm around his neck, feeling the well-worn wood and the inherited guilt that usually accompanied it. His grandmother had made it for his mother, and he told himself it was sentimentality that kept him wearing it.

“It saved us from the trolls,” Woohyun joked, not willing to confront what Sunggyu was trying to say; echoing Sunggyu’s tone from yesterday. “I asked it to keep us safe, and it did.”

“Lucky us,” Sunggyu whispered. “I wonder what people would say if you told them that.”

“Things have changed,” Woohyun tugged on Sunggyu’s shirt, pulling him towards an opening made by a crumbled block of wall. He suddenly wanted to be outside, away from the darkness of the stone. “Things have changed a lot.”

*

Sunggyu was thinking about leeches. The first time they’d jumped into the river it was more of an unstoppable urge to replicate anything close to a shower, to feel cool water on his skin again; now that they had the time to luxuriate in the clear, rushing water, Sunggyu wondered if his terrible luck was going to land him with unwelcome guests of the invertebrate variety.

“There are no leeches here, stupid,” Woohyun murmured, head pillowed nicely on a rock positioned just-so on the river bank, arms gently windmilling to keep his body floating near the surface. “You didn’t come out covered in them the first time so there’s no reason for you to be worrying about them now.”

Sunggyu halted in his suspicious pawing of the water surrounding him, and Woohyun laughed quietly, his chest rumbling with the sound. “I’ll never forget that time though-”

“There is no need to bring up past horribleness,” Sunggyu told him sternly, refusing to allow his mind to dredge up images of that one devastatingly huge leech that had attached itself to him after he’d had to wallow through a shallow pool – Woohyun had had to burn it off, but not before Sunggyu had shed a few rather – in his opinion – unmanly but wholly non-blameworthy tears.

Woohyun continued to float serenely, his head anchored securely on the flat grey rock that looked made for this express purpose. The branches of a gigantic oak tree growing out of the river’s left bank shaded his face, the wonderfully-shaped leaves swaying sweetly in the breeze.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

Woohyun smiled deep in response, the water lapping at his chin. “I’ve been dreaming about this place in my waking hours for years, Gyu. I never thought I’d find it; all those hours and hours spent in libraries and trawling through books and manuscripts, talking to people; the endless days of trekking and sleeping on the ground in the cold, putting up with your nagging – and here we are. I’ve walked the same paths as those who built El Dorado. I’m bathing in the same water that has flowed here for centuries. We are the first people to find this city since it was abandoned.” Woohyun turned over onto his belly and pushed off towards Sunggyu, who was mock-rolling his eyes at him. “Do you realize how huge that is?”

*

“Nobody’s set eyes on this dump in hundreds of years,” a soldier to Myungsoo’s left said scathingly, and spat. “I wish I wasn’t settin’ eyes on it now.”

 

_Myungsoo was thrown from his bunk, sleep knocked from him as savage as a knife to the throat. There were others on the floor as well as hanging half-off their beds, some in twisted positions that could not be comfortable and weren’t, from the sound of the cursing. He lay on the cold metal for a second longer, trying to ascertain if he was hurt – nothing was broken aside from an ache and burn he felt bone-deep from the jarring impact. Did they hit something? Did something hit them?_

_Myungsoo thought fearfully of the highland trolls he’d heard some of the traders speak of, rarely seen down in the plains but common in the mountains behind the city, that periodically raided cattle farms and killed travelers foolish enough to take the mountain passes. A troll running at full speed could, theoretically, send the train off-course –_

_“Yeol?” Myungsoo looked blearily around for the boy, whom he was sure had fallen asleep with him as they’d talked themselves to unwilling sleep in Myungsoo’s bunk, too cold and too awake from their jaunt outside to go to bed immediately._

_“Yeol? Are you here?” He was nowhere to be seen. Myungsoo frowned. Maybe he’d woken up and decided to go back to his own bunk, wherever that was._ __The sergeants were shouting, and Myungsoo screwed his eyes shut in frustration as men started_ to shakily move out, gathering their things as fast as they could. He bumped into another soldier on the way out, who turned to look at him halfway through Myungsoo’s tired apology. The soldier had eyes greener than anything Myungsoo had ever seen, and a curious, staring expression on his face – like he was analyzing Myungsoo, watching the way his mouth and throat moved as he spoke and the redness of his eyes._

_“I’m sorry,” Myungsoo repeated, and the soldier parted his lips slightly to touch his tongue to the roof of his mouth._

_“I’m sorry,” the soldier said, and Myungsoo turned away._

 

The shock of being awoken so harshly meant he was still on edge, nerves twanging, and it didn’t help any that His Lordship had commanded that they continue on foot once everybody was accounted for and all the equipment salvaged from the wreck of the train. It was freezing, he was tired, and everyone had been made to grab anything they could carry and march mindlessly through the dark. He’d lost track of the time.

“This is madness,” he growled to himself. It was a good thing no one had been hurt, he supposed, though he cared little enough about that. What if they’d marched in completely the wrong direction and become irrevocably lost – out here there was nothing they could use as comfort against the unforgiving wind, nothing to use as shelter if they were attacked. He wondered what it was like, to be that rich and have so much power that you could give the most fucking stupid commands and know, beyond a doubt, that they would be obeyed.

“Eh,” Yeol caught him by the elbow as Myungsoo stared unseeing at the bulk of El Dorado, lost in angry thought. “Myungsoo. Are you okay?”

“Where the fuck you been?” Myungsoo snapped, relief hardly softening the intense wrongness that was permeating his whole body, whipping round in thinly-veiled surprise.

“I was stuck behind everyone, I had to drag this ‘uge drill with five other guys,” Yeol gestured to a large lump about thirty feet from them, now covered with a large tarp. “What a night, eh? You’re not ‘urt?”

Myungsoo just shook his head, staring at the now-tiny line of the downed train that could still be seen in the distance, motionless and dead. “I knew that thing was trouble.” Yeol placed a sympathetic hand on Myungsoo’s shoulder, massaging softly. Myungsoo began to relax by degrees even though he wanted to savour the dregs of his anger; if only because it was too absurd a situation to accept.

Yeol was staring up at the city in turn when Myungsoo finally surrendered, his shoulders rounding in the tension leaving them. The weight of Yeol’s hand on Myungsoo’s shoulder had gone limp, and there was a hardness in his face that unsettled Myungsoo. He couldn’t explain how, exactly, but it was a probably a trick of the moonlight that lengthened Yeol’s eyes and tightened the curve of his mouth. All around them, men were taking refuge from the wind behind boulders that had been buildings and city walls, trying to wriggle as far down into their regulation coats as they could. Some of the sergeants were ordering fires to be made, and His Lordship’s squires were struggling to try and get a tent standing – Myungsoo curled his lip at this.

“C’mon,” Myungsoo said, tugging at Yeol’s sleeve. “Let’s not stand in the wind like chumps.”

They didn’t manage to get a fire going and so they huddled together for warmth. The last thing Myungsoo saw before he gave in to his exhaustion was his breath ghosting over Yeol’s cheek, Yeol’s face anything but peaceful.

*

By the time Woohyun could bear to tear himself away from the river, the afternoon sun had mellowed into gold.

“I almost don’t want to report back,” he told Sunggyu as he toweled off as best he could with his own shirt, letting his shorts drip themselves dry. “I don’t want hundreds of people who’d never even believed in this place to begin with traipsing all over this city. It’s _mine_ , you know?”

“Okay, your Highness,” Sunggyu said dryly. “It’s at least a quarter mine, too, seeing how much I helped you in your research and kept you from dying all the way here.”

“ _You_ kept _me_ from dying?” Woohyun’s laughter echoed upwards, sending a flight of white birds into the air. “Who was the one complaining about missing the Internet?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Sunggyu argued as they made their way back into the city proper, turning east and trying a different way back to the city gates. They passed, squabbling, under an arch laden with red fruit that Woohyun forced Sunggyu to take a photograph of, and then into a sun-drenched corridor that hugged the perimeter wall.

“Hey – these buildings look different to you?” Sunggyu squinted up, craning his neck to look back at the buildings to the west and south of where they’d come from. “Look at the stonework.”

Woohyun stopped to look as well, his hands on his hips. “They’re lower, and you’re right… different stonework. So much rougher – this could be where the city began, growing outwards as time went – oh my _god_ , Sunggyu, this is so exciting I’m going to _die_!”

“Control yourself,” Sunggyu advised.

“Come on, we have to look inside.” Woohyun disappeared into the closest building, the smaller doors and windows _probably indicating a time when the settlers were smaller-sized due to inferior nutrition_ Sunggyu’s theoretical knowledge rattled off in his brain. “How much earlier could these buildings be, though?” He mused aloud, ducking his head as he entered. “People don’t evolve to grow that much taller in just a century or so. The other buildings and doors are normal-sized.”

“What?” Woohyun said, distracted as he scampered from one end of the empty room to another.

“I said, how old do you think this building is? I mean, we might as well ask how old this city really is – whoops.” Sunggyu looked down, expecting to see his foot having caught against a slab of foundation-stone, warped in the years gone by so that it wasn’t lying flat anymore.

“Woohyun – oh, wow, Woohyun, come here right now.”

“What?”

Sunggyu had knelt in the sand, fingers carefully dusting away at something half-buried. Woohyun’s eyes grew large and he instantly fell to his knees as well, short fingers doing their best to help carefully dig the book out of the floor.

“Holy shit holy shit _holy shit_ -”

“Careful!”

“You don’t have to tell me to be careful, idiot.”

“How has this not disintegrated yet? All this time – oh shit we need this carbon dated WHY HAVE THEY NOT INVENTED A PORTABLE CARBON DATER?”

They carefully prised the book from the ground, Woohyun praying and begging whoever who would listen for the book not to break in their hands. It was a thin leather-bound book, covered in the fine sand and dust of centuries – no markings on the spine or the cover. Woohyun gingerly, slowly, raised the cover, Sunggyu on tenterhooks next to him.

“Woohyun,” Sunggyu whispered, both of them forgetting to breathe at the sight that greeted them. “We don’t need a carbon dater. It’s a journal. It’s a dated journal!”

 

_13 th day of the 2nd month, 5th year of His Majesty Hofjan II’s reign_

_Well, I made it. I’m in the Guards. Mam will be so proud of me when I tell her though I’ll probably leave out the part where most of the royal court guards are drunks and thieves. Wonder what my first duty will be. Probably nothing exciting._

 

Sunggyu and Woohyun looked at each other, hardly daring to believe their luck.

*

“Come on, we’ve got to get this back-”

“Are you kidding me right now? I can’t wait till we get all the way back to camp before reading this,” Woohyun said, getting comfortable on the ground and cradling the precious journal in his hands.

“ _Nam Woohyun_ you’re going to destroy it somehow,” Sunggyu wheedled, eyebrows drawn tight in apprehension, but Woohyun was already ignoring him and turning the page. Sunggyu gave up after a brief battle with himself and nudged in close to read the scrawling script as well, the dark ink covering the pages faded only slightly to their shared incredulity.

“Is there a name?”

Woohyun frowned, almost sweating with the effort of turning the pages with every caution so that they didn’t crumble to dust under his fingers. “I don’t see one.”

 

_6th day of the 3rd month, 5th year of His Majesty Hofjan II’s reign_

_Found out what my first duty will be. ‘Guarding and assistance of His Lordship Kang’ and you’ll never guess to where. Turns out a map’s been found of El Dorado – that lost city where all the gold’s supposed to be. I don’t believe it’s real though. Probably just gonna end up wandering around the plains for a few weeks and then it’ll be back home to the castle where I’ll be watching doors and gates for the next few months. El Dorado, of all things._

 

Woohyun had gone stockstill and staring into nothing, and Sunggyu knew what he was trying to deal with. “King Hofjan-”

“Yeah, Woohyun. Took the throne in 1808.”

“This soldier was going – went – came here in 1813. If this _journal_ is here it means _he_ managed to get here.”

“Yup.”

“…We’re not the first humans here since it was abandoned.”

“Maybe it was abandoned after this King Kang-”

“ _Lord_ Kang!”

“Oh. Ahahah.” Sunggyu tried for a hearty laugh, but it died on his lips seeing how disappointed Woohyun looked. Forgetting the journal for a moment, Sunggyu put his hand on Woohyun’s arm and jiggled it insistently until Woohyun looked up.

“Woohyun, listen to me. If this journal is right, that means the city is way older than what we – what _everyone_ – thought. It sounds like it was a legend even back in 1813, so can you imagine just what this discovery means? This journal, and this city – there’s so much we could find out. We’d be authenticating a legend that’s been around for _more_ than 200 years – there’s no telling what we could be adding to history. It doesn’t matter if what we thought was wrong. It’s like those archaeologists who found the first mummies, the first hidden tombs, the first Incan cities!”

“You’re right,” Woohyun said, sitting up straighter.  
  
”You know I am, you fucking idiot, I can’t believe I had to do the whole inspirational speech spiel. Now shut your ego away in a corner and can we read this thing?”

 

_23 rd day of the 4th month, 5th year of His Majesty Hofjan II’s reign_

_So. Still here. In this train. That makes no sound. We’ve been going for a week and it hasn’t slowed or stopped. This is unnatural, that’s what it is. I met another soldier today that seems close to my age. Everyone else on detail here is either too old or too stupid – shows you what kind of people they accept into the Guards. Was nice talking to him though the whole time I kept thinking of trees and rivers and suchlike, which doesn’t make sense. Felt fully relaxed talking to him for the first time I got on this damn machine though so it’s all good. He has a laugh like  I think he’s the son of some rich gentleman, like how the Old Memster told me the Guards get sometimes. I’m not sure why I’m writing this but he has a really nice laugh. God I’m bored!_

 

_28 th day of the 4th month, 5th year of His Majesty Hofjan II’s reign_

_Same thing today. Traveling without any stop at all. Food is still just bread and spicy meat stew though this morning Yeol managed to find blackberries from somewhere. Heaven! He should be careful though if he’s raiding the train’s larder cause I heard Cook is a nasty piece of work._

_When I get back to the city I think I’ll quit. I’m not_

_You’ll never guess what fucking happened  last night. The train only fucking broke down, didn’t it? Huge crash in the middle of the night, men all over the floor everywhere, and if that wasn’t bad enough fucking Kang gets us all up and marching with our packs and all the fucking mining equipment from the train and there we all go, in complete darkness save for a few torches here and there carried by the sergeants – all marching in dead of night till we actually find the fucking place. It’s real. Fucking El Dorado is real. I lost Yeol in the middle of it all [he’s been acting right weird ever since we got here] and turns out he’d had to drag this huge drill – I have no idea what his royal fuckship is up to but I’m not stupid. Berny’s dad was a miner, and he always said ‘fine tools for fine work’ – of course he was talking about seducing Mrs Jung next door with tiny rough jewel shards he stole from his work so he could do his ‘fine work’ with her – goddamn why am I carrying on about this, I only got half a pencil to last me. Anyway with jewels you don’t go in with big fucking drills. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing here, but it ain’t to dig up gems._

*

Myungsoo and Yeol woke the next morning, back muscles cramped and protesting, tiny dew droplets settled in their hair making them look like bejewelled dandelion flowers in the thin morning light.

“Ugh.”

“Good mornin’ to you, too,” Yeol muttered, extricating himself from under Myungsoo’s arm and from the damp horse blanket that had tried its best to keep them both warm throughout the night. His face softened momentarily at the tiny mushrooms that had appeared near his feet during the night, Myungsoo marveling at the precise shape they’d taken – almost the perfect outline of his right boot.

Yeol was still distracted yet trying hard to pretend not to be all through their hurried breakfast of bread, cheese and watery coffee. He kept glancing at the city looming over all of them, then at the tent Lord Kang was ensconced in, then back at the city – all with a tiny frown between his brows, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it like Myungsoo was. When Yeol dunked his cheese instead of his bread into his coffee for the third time, Myungsoo decided to just come right out and say it.

“Exactly what are you so scared about?”

Yeol whipped round to him so fast Myungsoo jerked back slightly in surprise. “I’m not scared,” Yeol snapped, and then immediately wiped the frown off his face. “Sorry – I’m sorry, mate. I just – I wanna know why we’re here.”

“Jewels. You heard.”

“You ain’t here for jewels,” Yeol said under his breath, as if he didn’t want Myungsoo to hear.

Deciding to let the ‘you’ instead of ‘we’ slide without further probing, Myungsoo rubbed his hands against the early morning chill, Yeol absentmindedly laying his hands over Myungsoo’s to help despite the fact that they were as cool as they always were. Myungsoo decided to let this slide too, allowing Yeol to believe he was helping.

“This city, huh? Never thought I’d actually be standin’ right outside it. I didn’t think it existed.”

“Probably should have stayed that way,” Yeol answered, his voice coming from a faraway place.

They marched into the city fifteen minutes later.

*

The city was deathly silent, the overcast sky not giving away much of its secrets as clouds made shadows darker and muted the light to gray. It made Myungsoo feel like he had to whisper, the clamminess of his hands that gripped his gun and the creaky strap of his pack uncomfortable. Fifty men marched quietly through the city, Lord Kang at the head, nobody wanting to tread heavily and everyone regretting the sound their leather uniforms made as they moved around fallen stones and under teetering arches. If Yeol had been uneasy earlier, he had gone positively paranoid the moment they entered the city, his breath coming quickly and eyes darting from one corner to another. Myungsoo took him by the elbow to ask if he wanted water and Yeol started violently.

“What’s wrong with you?” Myungsoo hissed, almost dropping his water gourd.

“Look, we shouldn’t be here-” Yeol began, swallowing. “All these men need to get out.”

“What are you talking about?” Myungsoo looked surreptitiously around them to see if anyone was listening, worried that his friend’s strange behaviour wouldn’t go unnoticed.

“I know why you’re here,” Yeol said urgently, coming to a complete stop. Myungsoo dragged him forward as best he could, beginning to panic too. Yeol was either insane, or –  _insane_ , but nonetheless his fear was catching.

“Don’t you mean ‘we’?” Myungsoo asked desperately, their feet carrying them along with the wave of marching men.

Yeol just looked at him for a few moments, and then shook his head. Myungsoo’s heart began to pound.

“Who are you?” He whispered, hand falling away from Yeol’s arm.

“Wrong question,” Yeol answered, mouth twisting wryly.

The men in front of them stopped, and Myungsoo bumped awkwardly into the pack of the soldier before him. When he had apologized and straightened himself out, Yeol was gone.

*

They had stopped before a river, clear water rushing and bubbling over a rocky channel not too wide to swim across, but too deep that you couldn’t see the bottom. A curious reaction with the minerals in the water had turned it a gorgeous blue – _the path of sapphires_ , Myungsoo thought in his distraction – and it ran under a huge oak tree of great age, gnarled branches spread out in a perfect angle to shade the width of the river. Green leaves swayed in the breeze, and what little sun there was glinted off the surface of the river such that you could almost believe that beneath the surface lay precious blue jewels.

Myungsoo, thoroughly unsettled, craned his neck to look for where Yeol had gone. Feeling bereft, Myungsoo tried to steel himself in case whatever Yeol was saying meant they were in danger, though from whom he could not say; then he shook himself, angry that he so easily trusted words from someone he’d met barely a week ago.

“Who’s got the axes?” His Lordship had pushed his way to the front of the group, and two sergeants stepped forward with their load of four axes. _Axes?_ Myungsoo thought in confusion, gripping his gun tightly.

“Right, the two of you. Chop it down.”

The two sergeants stared at Lord Kang as a ripple of incredulity washed over the men.

“…Chop it down? What – the oak, your Grace?”

“What else do you think I mean?” Lord Kang barked, his servants trying their best to keep his parasol steady as he paced in position, tension clearly showing on his face.

“But, your Grace…” one of the sergeants started, the axe in his hands hanging limply. “The tree’s spirit-”

“I don’t care about the damned tree or its wood spirit! Now do as I say and cut it down or I shall cut you down where you stand!”

“Sir-” a lieutenant pushed his way to the front. “Sir, with all due respect-”

“With all due respect you shall obey me or I shall have you all shot.”

Lord Kang was breathing heavily, fingers wound tight over the mother of pearl-handled pistol at his hip. “Alright. This is what we came for. Not gold, not jewels. The key to saving our city lies under this tree and if you want the Fiefdoms to survive you will not cross me,” he said in a low, forced-calm voice that was somehow more terrible than when he was shouting threats.

“What on earth is he sayin’?” A soldier behind Myungsoo said, scorn and fear mingled in his question. Lord Kang’s eyes slid over to where the man had spoken.

“You know what I’m talking about. The city is dying. No tree has bloomed there in the last five years and the blight grows ever outward. Our farmlands wither such that there might well have been salt sown in the ground. Once we lose the ability to feed ourselves and the news spreads it will not be long before the savages across the sea come warring. They will take our land and kill us all. Is that what you want?”

Myungsoo thought of the barren trees, all hardening wood and bare branches, that lined the royal courtyard; how when he was young his mother used to grow herbs by the window because they were expensive to buy, but not anymore – _but vegetables still came into the city_ , his brows knit in confused thought. The markets were full of fruit and roots, berries, leaves and other vegetables.

“But our farmlands – they’re not gone yet, sir, surely-”

Lord Kang cut the soldier off. “They will be, in another two years. Less, if the blight quickens.”

“So what is it you want, if we didn’t come here for jewels?” Myungsoo found himself speaking aloud, the men around him turning at his voice. “Why weren’t we told?"

Lord Kang scoffed. “Would you have come if you’d known you were going to capture a wood spirit?”

There was dead silence. The breath had stilled in Myungsoo’s lungs, and it seemed every other man’s – it was unheard of, unspoken, the evil of such an act. The wood spirits dwelt in their tree’s roots, and they were the reason for the life of all green things; to capture a wood spirit, to take it away from its tree – Myungsoo couldn’t even think it. This went far beyond accidentally hurting a tree, or harvesting the tree’s wood or fruit without performing the proper rites first that would appease the wood spirit or help it to move on. To take away the wood spirit itself, take it away from the ground it lived in –

“It wouldn’t work.”

Heads turned at the new voice, and Myungsoo’s jaw dropped to see it was Yeol. He was standing near the tree, soldier uniform gone with just his tunic and undershirt left on; looking much younger, and yet at the same time the hardness in his face and the straight-backed confidence he exuded making him seem much older as well. There was another soldier standing closer to Yeol than the rest of the group, and when the man turned slightly Myungsoo recognised familiar staring green eyes.

“You can’t take the wood spirit from her tree. She would die.”

 _She?_ Wood spirits hadn’t genders, as far as Myungsoo knew, but Yeol spoke words that seemed to come from the earth itself. Green flecked his hair, the breeze beginning to pick up.

“Who are you?” Lord Kang stepped forward, looking him up and down.

“It doesn’t matter. You need to leave here.”

Lord Kang didn’t speak for a long moment, as though sizing Yeol up. The men were silent, caught in between and unwilling to do this thing that was asked of them yet afraid to disobey.

“And so you’re saying I should let my city die?” Lord Kang began slowly, voice measured and nearly pleasant. “Watch the people starve and eventually succumb to the swords and guns of invaders? Or become homeless, set out as refugees with the hope that some kind ruler somewhere would take us in and then set us to work as slaves?”

There was murmuring at this, and Yeol reached out to put a hand on the trunk of the tree, as if to comfort it.

“I am sorry for your city,” he said with difficulty. “But that does not concern us. Human cities have always grown and withered, but we remain. We remain because we have to, because without us there would be none of you. Those that built El Dorado understood this, and left us these four walls long after they themselves were gone.”

“You’re one of… them, aren’t you?” Kang asked, casually stepping forward as if he’d heard nothing of what Yeol had just said.

“That’s not important,” Yeol began, the man with green eyes watching Kang with a single-mindedless that unnerved Myungsoo. He stepped closer in front of Yeol, and Kang stopped, thoughtfully contemplating them.

“And he’s your elemental, yes? That’s what you call his kind?”

Myungsoo couldn’t understand any of this, but he saw the anger in Yeol’s face and he understood that. Kang was still being infuriatingly calm, slowly pacing first this way and that, watching as much as he was being watched. The green-eyed man mirrored Kang’s movements as if he were a guard – as if Yeol was something worth guarding.

“So be it, then. We won’t capture the wood spirit,” Kang said, finally stopping his pacing, the men around him almost sagging with relief. 

Kang drew his pistol and fired it at the man with green eyes, Myungsoo opening his mouth to shout the same time that Yeol turned with arm outstretched, too late. The man exploded in green, the forms of his components organic and rootlike, folding in on themselves in a heap on the ground as the injury caused the glamour making him appear human shattered.

Kang ran forward, not wasting an instant, and grabbed Yeol, his pistol to Yeol’s head.

“Don’t do this,” Yeol gasped amidst the sudden chaos of a number of men fleeing at the horrific sight of the elemental disintegrating. The remaining men battled with their orders and their own terror, knowing they were tangling with something from the stories of old that they were told in their cots when they were children – the sound of the gunshot was still echoing faintly around the encircling mountains. Kang had begun to drag Yeol across the clearing back into the city, but Myungsoo couldn’t stop staring at the elemental fitfully rebuilding itself, stark movements around the burnt-out hole in its middle that it was trying to patch with blades of grass.

“Please. Your men. Take them and leave now,” Yeol begged, his hands scrabbling at Kang’s across his chest. “You don’t know-”

They all felt it before they heard the bone-shakingly low groan of tearing, ripping wood blaring its way out of the forest before them like a blow to the body. Kang stilled in making his way back towards the gates to turn around and see what was causing the sound, Yeol’s struggles intensifying. The remaining men started to back away, some turning to run outright.

“What’s happening?” Kang asked roughly, shaking Yeol. Another long scream of wood in pain rushed at them, Yeol squeezing his eyes tight against it. Myungsoo felt his legs falter, mindlessly trying to stay near Yeol – if Kang dragged Yeol out of the city that was where he had to go –

“Let me go, and maybe you’ll live,” Yeol rasped out. “Tell your men to leave. Now.”

The few remaining soldiers were drowning in the agony of indecision, frightened gazes flicking from their commander to the forest before them. Before he could act, screams echoed from back in the city – screams that were cut off too abruptly. Yeol stopped struggling, face drained of expression.

Myungsoo remembered, later, the last thing he saw before the ancient tree ripped up its roots from the ground, the earth churning and men falling screaming into the gaping holes that were left – little plants were growing up around Yeol’s feet, right before his eyes.

*

Myungsoo woke in the dead of night, opening his eyes and ears slowly. There were stars winking at him directly overhead through the canopy, the silent trees above him dark and tall. He was lying on the grass, coolness enveloping him, yet he was not cold – he stayed still for a few more long minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He was no longer in the clearing, no longer by the river, but he knew he wasn’t alone.

He sat up slowly, an ugly pain in his right leg giving him pause. He didn’t have to wait long for Yeol to move slightly out of the deep shadow of a nearby tree he was sitting against, his eyes bright in the moonlight.

“Where am I?” Myungsoo mumbled, trying to get the obvious question out of the way first.

“Away,” Yeol answered, and it was enough, Myungsoo decided.

“Your leg’s broken. I’m healing it.” _Another question answered_.

“The tree-” Myungsoo began, and then stopped. “Who are you?”

Yeol smiled, but it was without humour. “I told you before, that’s the wrong question.”

Myungsoo looked quietly at him then, Yeol holding his gaze unflinchingly.

“What are you?”

Yeol smiled again, softer this time.

“The city was built eight hundred years ago, I think. Human time passes differently. The priests of that age worshipped the wood spirits, treasured their union with the land. It was never a city of men – made to mimic the priests’ citadel of that time, but – centering on the tree and its spirit they planted there to symbolize the eternal connection between man and nature. That tree became sacred, holy – and as man’s belief in it grew it fed the power of the spirit. The citadel and every kingdom for hundreds of miles around flourished. The people never wanted for anything – grain stores spilling over, orchard trees hanging heavy with fruit, animals growing fine and strong. She became tied to this land, just as it was tied to her. But time passed, as it does. The priests died, warring nations came, sickness invaded. The city and the spirit was forgotten. Soon nobody spoke the language of the priests anymore, and this city was thought to house gold instead. Gold comes from an ancient word, you see,” Yeol turned to Myungsoo. “It’s the same word for seed.”

“The land tried to hide it, mountains crowding closer, forests growing over it to keep it away from prying eyes. And it worked, too.” Yeol trailed off, fingers playing with a fallen leaf.

 _Until tonight_. The thought appeared in Myungsoo’s mind as if it had been neatly put there, and Myungsoo slowly lifted his eyes to see Yeol watching him.

“I’m a guardian. There used to be many of us, before. Not so many, now.”

“Is everyone dead?” Myungsoo asked, and Yeol looked away.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They threatened her. Me.”

“ _They were just acting on orders-_ ”

“Whoever gets away will bring more humans back!” Myungsoo frowned at Yeol’s back, now turned away completely and bent over in the darkness. “How long before someone else decides that they’ll be bringing the spirit back to their city to magically produce riches and wealth? If she is taken out of the ground, out from this city, she will die and everything else with her. The forest couldn’t allow that.”

“They didn’t have to die.”

“My elemental crashed the train and they still kept coming. The forest looks after itself when no one else can.” Yeol slammed a balled-up fist into his thigh, the sound of flesh hitting flesh almost sickening.

“Why not me?” Myungsoo took a deep breath, trying not to think of his soldier brothers, now buried in the earth. “Why am I still alive?”

Yeol didn’t answer for a long time, and when he did his voice in Myungsoo’s head sounded like it came from far away.

_Because you mourned my elemental. You watched that man shoot it and you felt sorrow as it tried to fix itself. You felt horror that someone could want something so innocent destroyed. I gave you my protection, and the forest let you live._

Myungsoo watched Yeol’s back for a long time, the guardian’s regret, anger and revulsion blooming silently in his mind until he realized that Yeol was trembling slightly, the quiet sounds of crying disappearing into the wide night.

*

“There’s nothing more after this,” Sunggyu said softly, turning the pages carefully to check. He felt strangely weary.

Woohyun wordlessly took the journal from Sunggyu, and then got to his feet, holding out a hand for Sunggyu.

*

Myungsoo walked slowly into the building, what he supposed was intended to serve as the city’s library. It was remarkable how little the city had changed over the years, but then he supposed that was the human in him talking. Humans always had to find change, to look for evidence of progress or decay – the city probably hadn’t changed at all, and it was inconsequential what he thought.

He wondered where to place his journal, and why he was being so sentimental about it – it wasn’t likely anyone was going to find it, anyway. But then again, if he’d bothered to make that trip back to the clearing – so eerily empty and quiet that he’d retched into the grass before he’d made it out with his pack – the very minute he could walk again, and bothered to keep it all these years after making one last entry… he supposed he might as well do it. It wasn’t as though he could take it with him, where he was going.

In the end he settled for just letting it drop to the ground figuring that that was as good a place as any.

Yeol was waiting for him when he emerged, and they went back into the forest together for the last time, Yeol’s hand bumping fondly against his as smooth and firm as it had been the day they’d met, and his wrinkled one rather spoiling the picture with its liver spots.

He grumbled at Yeol’s speed, and Yeol slowed to allow the old man to catch up.

*

Sunggyu followed Woohyun back to the river, the sun having set already in the time it had taken them to finish reading the journal. It was twilight, casting everything in muted forms of their original colours. The river was a dark swathe cutting through the valley, and the two stood quietly by its right bank, looking up at the tree.

“I don’t know what to say,” Sunggyu admitted, looking sideways at Woohyun. “This is huge, of course. You’re going to be famous, Woohyun. Beyond your wildest dreams.”

“I never needed to be famous,” Woohyun answered. He rubbed his thumbs over the binding of the journal, and sighed. “I better not regret this.”

He dropped the journal into the river with a small splash, and they both watched as it sank out of sight.

“Start for home tomorrow?”

Sunggyu inhaled deeply, and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Yup. Let’s have a barbecue when we get back to celebrate this incredibly wonderful discovery we can never tell anyone about. I suppose it was lucky the transmitter stopped working.”

“I can’t believe my life. I am actually choosing to protect a wood spirit over my own career prospects. Four years, Sunggyu! Four years looking for this place, down the drain!”

“Well, you know, it’s like that movie, only instead of Paris it’s ‘We’ll always have El Dorado’.”

“What?”

“Honestly, Woohyun, you’re so uncultured. You’ve never heard of the movie ‘Casablanca’?”

“I didn’t have time to watch movies. I was wasting my life researching this place.”

“Not really a waste, I suppose, protecting the source of life for this entire area.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better it’s not working.”

“Well, I mean, you’re almost a guardian, too, just like that Yeol guy. Think about it.”

“Yeah. I’ll put that on my resumé. You know, I wonder what happened to the person who wrote the journal.”

“Dust and ashes by now, Woohyun.”

“As is the fate of everyone, including us. But first, you're right. Barbecue. Steak. Pork chops. Then maybe we can find another lost city to go hunt.”

“Now you’re talking.”

Yeol watched them go from his position in the shadows till he could hear them no longer, and then smiled, disappearing into the trees.

*


End file.
